actual vs. potential

It can be nerve racking to be around artists. To render well, they see every pore; every unplucked eyebrow; every sag; every wrinkle. An artist sees brutal reality and records it. Picasso the novice.

But there's another side to artists--the perspective of the visionary. The need to embellish, update, clarify, distort, and perfect. To render things not as they are, but as the artist sees them. Picasso the cubist.

The Master Artist sees beyond pores, eyebrows, sags, and wrinkles to my anxiety, fatigue, blind spots, error, mess, conflict, darkness. He also sees who I will be: beautiful, released, growing, trusting, new, different, bright. HOPE.

May I be the kind of artist who, seeing the flaws, emphasizes the beauty.